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Versions: 00 01
INTERNET-DRAFT E. Nordmark
July 17, 2002 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Obsoletes: 2893 R. E. Gilligan
Intransa, Inc.
Transition Mechanisms for IPv6 Hosts and Routers
<draft-ietf-ngtrans-mech-v2-00.txt>
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions
of Section 10 of RFC2026.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
This draft expires on January 17, 2003.
Abstract
This document specifies IPv4 compatibility mechanisms that can be
implemented by IPv6 hosts and routers. These mechanisms include
providing complete implementations of both versions of the Internet
Protocol (IPv4 and IPv6), and tunneling IPv6 packets over IPv4
routing infrastructures. They are designed to allow IPv6 nodes to
maintain complete compatibility with IPv4, which should greatly
simplify the deployment of IPv6 in the Internet, and facilitate the
eventual transition of the entire Internet to IPv6.
This document obsoletes RFC 2893.
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Contents
Status of this Memo.......................................... 1
1. Introduction............................................. 3
1.1. Terminology......................................... 3
1.2. Structure of this Document.......................... 5
2. Dual IP Layer Operation.................................. 6
2.1. Address Configuration............................... 6
2.2. DNS................................................. 6
2.3. Advertising Addresses in the DNS.................... 7
3. Common Tunneling Mechanisms.............................. 9
3.1. Encapsulation....................................... 10
3.2. Tunnel MTU and Fragmentation........................ 11
3.3. Hop Limit........................................... 13
3.4. Handling IPv4 ICMP errors........................... 13
3.5. IPv4 Header Construction............................ 14
3.6. Decapsulation....................................... 16
3.7. Link-Local Addresses................................ 17
3.8. Neighbor Discovery over Tunnels..................... 18
3.9. Ingress Filtering................................... 19
4. Configured Tunneling..................................... 19
4.1. Ingress Filtering................................... 20
5. Acknowledgments.......................................... 20
6. Security Considerations.................................. 20
7. Authors' Addresses....................................... 20
8. References............................................... 21
9. Changes from RFC 2893.................................... 22
10. Changes from RFC 2893................................... 23
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1. Introduction
The key to a successful IPv6 transition is compatibility with the
large installed base of IPv4 hosts and routers. Maintaining
compatibility with IPv4 while deploying IPv6 will streamline the task
of transitioning the Internet to IPv6. This specification defines a
set of mechanisms that IPv6 hosts and routers may implement in order
to be compatible with IPv4 hosts and routers.
The mechanisms in this document are designed to be employed by IPv6
hosts and routers that need to interoperate with IPv4 hosts and
utilize IPv4 routing infrastructures. We expect that most nodes in
the Internet will need such compatibility for a long time to come,
and perhaps even indefinitely.
However, IPv6 may be used in some environments where interoperability
with IPv4 is not required. IPv6 nodes that are designed to be used
in such environments need not use or even implement these mechanisms.
The mechanisms specified here include:
- Dual IP layer (also known as Dual Stack): A technique for
providing complete support for both Internet protocols -- IPv4
and IPv6 -- in hosts and routers.
- Configured tunneling of IPv6 over IPv4: Point-to-point tunnels
made by encapsulating IPv6 packets within IPv4 headers to carry
them over IPv4 routing infrastructures.
The mechanisms defined here are intended to be part of a "transition
toolbox" -- a growing collection of techniques which implementations
and users may employ to ease the transition. The tools may be used
as needed. Implementations and sites decide which techniques are
appropriate to their specific needs. This document defines the
initial core set of transition mechanisms, but these are not expected
to be the only tools available. Additional transition and
compatibility mechanisms are expected to be developed in the future,
with new documents being written to specify them.
1.1. Terminology
The following terms are used in this document:
Types of Nodes
IPv4-only node:
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A host or router that implements only IPv4. An IPv4-
only node does not understand IPv6. The installed base
of IPv4 hosts and routers existing before the transition
begins are IPv4-only nodes.
IPv6/IPv4 node:
A host or router that implements both IPv4 and IPv6.
IPv6-only node:
A host or router that implements IPv6, and does not
implement IPv4. The operation of IPv6-only nodes is not
addressed here.
IPv6 node:
Any host or router that implements IPv6. IPv6/IPv4 and
IPv6-only nodes are both IPv6 nodes.
IPv4 node:
Any host or router that implements IPv4. IPv6/IPv4 and
IPv4-only nodes are both IPv4 nodes.
Types of IPv6 Addresses
IPv4-compatible IPv6 address:
An IPv6 address bearing the high-order 96-bit prefix
0:0:0:0:0:0, and an IPv4 address in the low-order 32-
bits. IPv4-compatible addresses are no longer used by
this specification,
IPv6-native address:
The remainder of the IPv6 address space. An IPv6
address that bears a prefix other than 0:0:0:0:0:0.
Techniques Used in the Transition
IPv6-over-IPv4 tunneling:
The technique of encapsulating IPv6 packets within IPv4
so that they can be carried across IPv4 routing
infrastructures.
Configured tunneling:
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IPv6-over-IPv4 tunneling where the IPv4 tunnel endpoint
address is determined by configuration information on
the encapsulating node. The tunnels can be either
unidirectional or bidirectional. Bidirectional
configured tunnels behave as virtual point-to-point
links.
Other transition mechanisms, including other tunneling mechanisms,
are outside the scope of this document.
Modes of operation of IPv6/IPv4 nodes
IPv6-only operation:
An IPv6/IPv4 node with its IPv6 stack enabled and its
IPv4 stack disabled.
IPv4-only operation:
An IPv6/IPv4 node with its IPv4 stack enabled and its
IPv6 stack disabled.
IPv6/IPv4 operation:
An IPv6/IPv4 node with both stacks enabled.
The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD,
SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, when they appear in this
document, are to be interpreted as described in [16].
1.2. Structure of this Document
The remainder of this document is organized as follows:
- Section 2 discusses the operation of nodes with a dual IP layer,
IPv6/IPv4 nodes.
- Section 3 discusses the common mechanisms used in some IPv6-
over-IPv4 tunneling techniques, including configured tunneling.
- Section 4 discusses configured tunneling.
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2. Dual IP Layer Operation
The most straightforward way for IPv6 nodes to remain compatible with
IPv4-only nodes is by providing a complete IPv4 implementation. IPv6
nodes that provide a complete IPv4 and IPv6 implementations are
called "IPv6/IPv4 nodes." IPv6/IPv4 nodes have the ability to send
and receive both IPv4 and IPv6 packets. They can directly
interoperate with IPv4 nodes using IPv4 packets, and also directly
interoperate with IPv6 nodes using IPv6 packets.
Even though a node may be equipped to support both protocols, one or
the other stack may be disabled for operational reasons. Thus
IPv6/IPv4 nodes may be operated in one of three modes:
- With their IPv4 stack enabled and their IPv6 stack disabled.
- With their IPv6 stack enabled and their IPv4 stack disabled.
- With both stacks enabled.
IPv6/IPv4 nodes with their IPv6 stack disabled will operate like
IPv4-only nodes. Similarly, IPv6/IPv4 nodes with their IPv4 stacks
disabled will operate like IPv6-only nodes. IPv6/IPv4 nodes MAY
provide a configuration switch to disable either their IPv4 or IPv6
stack.
The dual IP layer technique may or may not be used in conjunction
with the IPv6-over-IPv4 tunneling technique, which are described in
sections 3 and 4. An IPv6/IPv4 node MAY support configured
tunneling.
2.1. Address Configuration
Because they support both protocols, IPv6/IPv4 nodes may be
configured with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. IPv6/IPv4 nodes use
IPv4 mechanisms (e.g., DHCP) to acquire their IPv4 addresses, and
IPv6 protocol mechanisms (e.g., stateless address autoconfiguration
and/or DHCPv6) to acquire their IPv6-native addresses.
2.2. DNS
The Domain Naming System (DNS) is used in both IPv4 and IPv6 to map
between hostnames and IP addresses. A new resource record type named
"AAAA" has been defined for IPv6 addresses [6]. Since IPv6/IPv4
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nodes must be able to interoperate directly with both IPv4 and IPv6
nodes, they must provide resolver libraries capable of dealing with
IPv4 "A" records as well as IPv6 "AAAA" records.
DNS resolver libraries on IPv6/IPv4 nodes MUST be capable of handling
both AAAA and A records. However, when a query locates an AAAA
record holding an IPv6 address, and an A record holding an IPv4
address, the resolver library MAY filter or order the results
returned to the application in order to influence the version of IP
packets used to communicate with that node. In terms of filtering,
the resolver library has three alternatives:
- Return only the IPv6 address(es) to the application.
- Return only the IPv4 address(es) to the application.
- Return both types of addresses to the application.
If it returns only the IPv6 address(es), the application will
communicate with the node using IPv6. If it returns only the IPv4
address(es), the application will communicate with the node using
IPv4. If it returns both types of addresses, the application will
have the choice which address to use, and thus which IP protocol to
employ.
If it returns both, the resolver MAY elect to order the addresses --
IPv6 first, or IPv4 first. Since most applications try the addresses
in the order they are returned by the resolver, this can affect the
IP version "preference" of applications.
The decision to filter or order DNS results is implementation
specific. IPv6/IPv4 nodes MAY provide policy configuration to
control filtering or ordering of addresses returned by the resolver,
or leave the decision entirely up to the application.
An implementation MUST allow the application to control whether or
not such filtering takes place.
More details on this subject are specified in [19].
2.3. Advertising Addresses in the DNS
There are some constraint placed on the use of the DNS during
transition. Most of these are obvious but are stated here for
completeness.
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The recommendation is that AAAA records for a node should not be
added to the DNS until all of these are true:
1) The address is assigned to the interface on the node.
2) The address is configured on the interface.
3) The interface is on a link which is connected to the IPv6
infrastructure.
If an IPv6 node is isolated from an IPv6 perspective (e.g., it is not
connected to the 6bone to take a concrete example) constraint #3
would mean that it should not have an address in the DNS.
This works great when other dual stack nodes tries to contact the
isolated dual stack node. There is no IPv6 address in the DNS thus
the peer doesn't even try communicating using IPv6 but goes directly
to IPv4 (we are assuming both nodes have A records in the DNS.)
However, this does not work well when the isolated node is trying to
establish communication. Even though it does not have an IPv6
address in the DNS it will find AAAA records in the DNS for the peer.
Since the isolated node has IPv6 addresses assigned to at least one
interface it will try to communicate using IPv6. If it has no IPv6
route to the 6bone (e.g., because the local router was upgraded to
advertise IPv6 addresses using Neighbor Discovery but that router
doesn't have any IPv6 routes) this communication will fail.
Typically this means a few minutes of delay as TCP times out. The
TCP specification says that ICMP unreachable messages could be due to
routing transients thus they should not immediately terminate the TCP
connection. This means that the normal TCP timeout of a few minutes
apply. Once TCP times out the application will hopefully try the
IPv4 addresses based on the A records in the DNS, but this will be
painfully slow.
A possible implication of the recommendations above is that, if one
enables IPv6 on a node on a link without IPv6 infrastructure, and
choose to add AAAA records to the DNS for that node, then external
IPv6 nodes that might see these AAAA records will possibly try to
reach that node using IPv6 and suffer delays or communication failure
due to unreachability. (A delay is incurred if the application
correctly falls back to using IPv4 if it can not establish
communication using IPv6 addresses. If this fallback is not done the
application would fail to communicate in this case.) Thus it is
suggested that either the recommendations be followed, or care be
taken to only do so with nodes that will not be impacted by external
accessing delays and/or communication failure.
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In the future when a site or node removes the support for IPv4 the
above recommendations apply to when the A records for the node(s)
should be removed from the DNS.
3. Common Tunneling Mechanisms
In most deployment scenarios, the IPv6 routing infrastructure will be
built up over time. While the IPv6 infrastructure is being deployed,
the existing IPv4 routing infrastructure can remain functional, and
can be used to carry IPv6 traffic. Tunneling provides a way to
utilize an existing IPv4 routing infrastructure to carry IPv6
traffic.
IPv6/IPv4 hosts and routers can tunnel IPv6 datagrams over regions of
IPv4 routing topology by encapsulating them within IPv4 packets.
Tunneling can be used in a variety of ways:
- Router-to-Router. IPv6/IPv4 routers interconnected by an IPv4
infrastructure can tunnel IPv6 packets between themselves. In
this case, the tunnel spans one segment of the end-to-end path
that the IPv6 packet takes.
- Host-to-Router. IPv6/IPv4 hosts can tunnel IPv6 packets to an
intermediary IPv6/IPv4 router that is reachable via an IPv4
infrastructure. This type of tunnel spans the first segment of
the packet's end-to-end path.
- Host-to-Host. IPv6/IPv4 hosts that are interconnected by an
IPv4 infrastructure can tunnel IPv6 packets between themselves.
In this case, the tunnel spans the entire end-to-end path that
the packet takes.
- Router-to-Host. IPv6/IPv4 routers can tunnel IPv6 packets to
their final destination IPv6/IPv4 host. This tunnel spans only
the last segment of the end-to-end path.
Tunneling techniques are usually classified according to the
mechanism by which the encapsulating node determines the address of
the node at the end of the tunnel. In the first two tunneling
methods listed above -- router-to-router and host-to-router -- the
IPv6 packet is being tunneled to a router. The endpoint of this type
of tunnel is an intermediary router which must decapsulate the IPv6
packet and forward it on to its final destination. When tunneling to
a router, the endpoint of the tunnel is different from the
destination of the packet being tunneled. So the addresses in the
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IPv6 packet being tunneled can not provide the IPv4 address of the
tunnel endpoint. Instead, the tunnel endpoint address must be
determined from configuration information on the node performing the
tunneling. We use the term "configured tunneling" to describe the
type of tunneling where the endpoint is explicitly configured.
In the last two tunneling methods -- host-to-host and router-to-host
-- the IPv6 packet is tunneled all the way to its final destination.
In this case, the destination address of both the IPv6 packet and the
encapsulating IPv4 header identify the same node. However, the
tunneling mechanism specified in this document does not handle these
cases any differently; the IPv4 addresses is still determined using
configuration information using configured tunneling.
The underlying mechanisms for tunneling are:
- The entry node of the tunnel (the encapsulating node) creates an
encapsulating IPv4 header and transmits the encapsulated packet.
- The exit node of the tunnel (the decapsulating node) receives
the encapsulated packet, reassembles the packet if needed,
removes the IPv4 header, updates the IPv6 header, and processes
the received IPv6 packet.
- The encapsulating node MAY need to maintain soft state
information for each tunnel recording such parameters as the MTU
of the tunnel in order to process IPv6 packets forwarded into
the tunnel. Since the number of tunnels that any one host or
router may be using may grow to be quite large, this state
information can be cached and discarded when not in use.
The remainder of this section discusses the common mechanisms. A
subsequent section discusses how the tunnel endpoint address is
determined for configured tunneling.
3.1. Encapsulation
The encapsulation of an IPv6 datagram in IPv4 is shown below:
<draft-ietf-ngtrans-mech-v2-00.txt> [Page 10]
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+-------------+
| IPv4 |
| Header |
+-------------+ +-------------+
| IPv6 | | IPv6 |
| Header | | Header |
+-------------+ +-------------+
| Transport | | Transport |
| Layer | ===> | Layer |
| Header | | Header |
+-------------+ +-------------+
| | | |
~ Data ~ ~ Data ~
| | | |
+-------------+ +-------------+
Encapsulating IPv6 in IPv4
In addition to adding an IPv4 header, the encapsulating node also has
to handle some more complex issues:
- Determine when to fragment and when to report an ICMP "packet
too big" error back to the source.
- How to reflect IPv4 ICMP errors from routers along the tunnel
path back to the source as IPv6 ICMP errors.
Those issues are discussed in the following sections.
3.2. Tunnel MTU and Fragmentation
The encapsulating node could view encapsulation as IPv6 using IPv4 as
a link layer with a very large MTU (65535-20 bytes to be exact; 20
bytes "extra" are needed for the encapsulating IPv4 header). The
encapsulating node would need only to report IPv6 ICMP "packet too
big" errors back to the source for packets that exceed this MTU.
However, such a scheme would be inefficient for two reasons:
1) It would result in more fragmentation than needed. IPv4 layer
fragmentation SHOULD be avoided due to the performance problems
caused by the loss unit being smaller than the retransmission
unit [11].
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2) Any IPv4 fragmentation occurring inside the tunnel would have to
be reassembled at the tunnel endpoint. For tunnels that
terminate at a router, this would require additional memory to
reassemble the IPv4 fragments into a complete IPv6 packet before
that packet could be forwarded onward.
The fragmentation inside the tunnel can be reduced to a minimum by
having the encapsulating node track the IPv4 Path MTU across the
tunnel, using the IPv4 Path MTU Discovery Protocol [8] and recording
the resulting path MTU. The IPv6 layer in the encapsulating node can
then view a tunnel as a link layer with an MTU equal to the IPv4 path
MTU, minus the size of the encapsulating IPv4 header.
Note that this does not completely eliminate IPv4 fragmentation in
the case when the IPv4 path MTU would result in an IPv6 MTU less than
1280 bytes. (Any link layer used by IPv6 has to have an MTU of at
least 1280 bytes [4].) In this case the IPv6 layer has to "see" a
link layer with an MTU of 1280 bytes and the encapsulating node has
to use IPv4 fragmentation in order to forward the 1280 byte IPv6
packets.
The encapsulating node can employ the following algorithm to
determine when to forward an IPv6 packet that is larger than the
tunnel's path MTU using IPv4 fragmentation, and when to return an
IPv6 ICMP "packet too big" message:
if (IPv4 path MTU - 20) is less than or equal to 1280
if packet is larger than 1280 bytes
Send IPv6 ICMP "packet too big" with MTU = 1280.
Drop packet.
else
Encapsulate but do not set the Don't Fragment
flag in the IPv4 header. The resulting IPv4
packet might be fragmented by the IPv4 layer on
the encapsulating node or by some router along
the IPv4 path.
endif
else
if packet is larger than (IPv4 path MTU - 20)
Send IPv6 ICMP "packet too big" with
MTU = (IPv4 path MTU - 20).
Drop packet.
else
Encapsulate and set the Don't Fragment flag
in the IPv4 header.
endif
endif
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Encapsulating nodes that have a large number of tunnels might not be
able to store the IPv4 Path MTU for all tunnels. Such nodes can, at
the expense of additional fragmentation in the network, avoid using
the IPv4 Path MTU algorithm across the tunnel and instead use the MTU
of the link layer (under IPv4) in the above algorithm instead of the
IPv4 path MTU.
In this case the Don't Fragment bit MUST NOT be set in the
encapsulating IPv4 header.
3.3. Hop Limit
IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnels are modeled as "single-hop". That is, the
IPv6 hop limit is decremented by 1 when an IPv6 packet traverses the
tunnel. The single-hop model serves to hide the existence of a
tunnel. The tunnel is opaque to users of the network, and is not
detectable by network diagnostic tools such as traceroute.
The single-hop model is implemented by having the encapsulating and
decapsulating nodes process the IPv6 hop limit field as they would if
they were forwarding a packet on to any other datalink. That is,
they decrement the hop limit by 1 when forwarding an IPv6 packet.
(The originating node and final destination do not decrement the hop
limit.)
The TTL of the encapsulating IPv4 header is selected in an
implementation dependent manner. The current suggested value is
published in the "Assigned Numbers RFC. Implementations MAY provide
a mechanism to allow the administrator to configure the IPv4 TTL such
as the one specified in the IP Tunnel MIB [17].
3.4. Handling IPv4 ICMP errors
In response to encapsulated packets it has sent into the tunnel, the
encapsulating node might receive IPv4 ICMP error messages from IPv4
routers inside the tunnel. These packets are addressed to the
encapsulating node because it is the IPv4 source of the encapsulated
packet.
The ICMP "packet too big" error messages are handled according to
IPv4 Path MTU Discovery [8] and the resulting path MTU is recorded in
the IPv4 layer. The recorded path MTU is used by IPv6 to determine
if an IPv6 ICMP "packet too big" error has to be generated as
described in section 3.2.
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The handling of other types of ICMP error messages depends on how
much information is included in the "packet in error" field, which
holds the encapsulated packet that caused the error.
Many older IPv4 routers return only 8 bytes of data beyond the IPv4
header of the packet in error, which is not enough to include the
address fields of the IPv6 header. More modern IPv4 routers are
likely to return enough data beyond the IPv4 header to include the
entire IPv6 header and possibly even the data beyond that.
If the offending packet includes enough data, the encapsulating node
MAY extract the encapsulated IPv6 packet and use it to generate an
IPv6 ICMP message directed back to the originating IPv6 node, as
shown below:
+--------------+
| IPv4 Header |
| dst = encaps |
| node |
+--------------+
| ICMP |
| Header |
- - +--------------+
| IPv4 Header |
| src = encaps |
IPv4 | node |
+--------------+ - -
Packet | IPv6 |
| Header | Original IPv6
in +--------------+ Packet -
| Transport | Can be used to
Error | Header | generate an
+--------------+ IPv6 ICMP
| | error message
~ Data ~ back to the source.
| |
- - +--------------+ - -
IPv4 ICMP Error Message Returned to Encapsulating Node
3.5. IPv4 Header Construction
When encapsulating an IPv6 packet in an IPv4 datagram, the IPv4
header fields are set as follows:
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Version:
4
IP Header Length in 32-bit words:
5 (There are no IPv4 options in the encapsulating
header.)
Type of Service:
0. [Note that work underway in the IETF is redefining
the Type of Service byte and as a result future RFCs
might define a different behavior for the ToS byte when
tunneling.]
Total Length:
Payload length from IPv6 header plus length of IPv6 and
IPv4 headers (i.e. a constant 60 bytes).
Identification:
Generated uniquely as for any IPv4 packet transmitted by
the system.
Flags:
Set the Don't Fragment (DF) flag as specified in section
3.2. Set the More Fragments (MF) bit as necessary if
fragmenting.
Fragment offset:
Set as necessary if fragmenting.
Time to Live:
Set in implementation-specific manner.
Protocol:
41 (Assigned payload type number for IPv6)
Header Checksum:
Calculate the checksum of the IPv4 header.
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Source Address:
IPv4 address of outgoing interface of the encapsulating
node.
Destination Address:
IPv4 address of tunnel endpoint.
Any IPv6 options are preserved in the packet (after the IPv6 header).
3.6. Decapsulation
When an IPv6/IPv4 host or a router receives an IPv4 datagram that is
addressed to one of its own IPv4 address, and the value of the
protocol field is 41, it reassembles if the packet if it is
fragmented at the IPv4 level, then it removes the IPv4 header and
submits the IPv6 datagram to its IPv6 layer code.
The decapsulating node MUST be capable of reassembling an IPv4 packet
that is 1300 bytes (1280 bytes plus IPv4 header).
The decapsulation is shown below:
+-------------+
| IPv4 |
| Header |
+-------------+ +-------------+
| IPv6 | | IPv6 |
| Header | | Header |
+-------------+ +-------------+
| Transport | | Transport |
| Layer | ===> | Layer |
| Header | | Header |
+-------------+ +-------------+
| | | |
~ Data ~ ~ Data ~
| | | |
+-------------+ +-------------+
Decapsulating IPv6 from IPv4
When decapsulating the packet, the IPv6 header is not modified.
[Note that work underway in the IETF is redefining the Type of
Service byte and as a result future RFCs might define a different
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behavior for the ToS byte when decapsulating a tunneled packet.] If
the packet is subsequently forwarded, its hop limit is decremented by
one.
As part of the decapsulation the node SHOULD silently discard a
packet with an invalid IPv4 source address such as a multicast
address, a broadcast address, 0.0.0.0, and 127.0.0.1. In general it
SHOULD apply the rules for martian filtering in [18] and ingress
filtering [13] on the IPv4 source address.
The encapsulating IPv4 header is discarded.
After the decapsulation the node SHOULD silently discard a packet
with an invalid IPv6 source address. This includes IPv6 multicast
addresses, the unspecified address, and the loopback address but also
IPv4-compatible IPv6 source addresses where the IPv4 part of the
address is an (IPv4) multicast address, broadcast address, 0.0.0.0,
or 127.0.0.1. In general it SHOULD apply the rules for martian
filtering in [18] and ingress filtering [13] on the IPv4-compatible
source address.
The decapsulating node performs IPv4 reassembly before decapsulating
the IPv6 packet. All IPv6 options are preserved even if the
encapsulating IPv4 packet is fragmented.
After the IPv6 packet is decapsulated, it is processed almost the
same as any received IPv6 packet. The only difference being that a
decapsulated packet MUST NOT be forwarded unless the node has been
explicitly configured to forward such packets for the given IPv4
source address. This configuration can be implicit in e.g., having a
configured tunnel which matches the IPv4 source address. This
restriction is needed to prevent tunneling to be used as a tool to
circumvent ingress filtering [13].
3.7. Link-Local Addresses
The configured tunnels are IPv6 interfaces (over the IPv4 "link
layer") thus MUST have link-local addresses. The link-local
addresses are used by routing protocols operating over the tunnels.
The Interface Identifier [14] for such an Interface SHOULD be the
32-bit IPv4 address of that interface, with the bytes in the same
order in which they would appear in the header of an IPv4 packet,
padded at the left with zeros to a total of 64 bits. Note that the
"Universal/Local" bit is zero, indicating that the Interface
Identifier is not globally unique. When the host has more than one
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INTERNET DRAFT IPv6 Transition Mechanisms July 2002
IPv4 address in use on the physical interface concerned, an
administrative choice of one of these IPv4 addresses is made.
The IPv6 Link-local address [14] for an IPv4 virtual interface is
formed by appending the Interface Identifier, as defined above, to
the prefix FE80::/64.
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+------+
| FE 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+------+
| 00 00 | 00 | 00 | IPv4 Address |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+------+
3.8. Neighbor Discovery over Tunnels
Unidirectional configured tunnels are considered to be
unidirectional! Thus the only aspects of Neighbor Discovery [7] and
Stateless Address Autoconfiguration [5] that apply to these tunnels
is the formation of the link-local address.
If an implementation provides bidirectional configured tunnels it
MUST at least accept and respond to the probe packets used by
Neighbor Unreachability Detection [7]. Such implementations SHOULD
also send NUD probe packets to detect when the configured tunnel
fails at which point the implementation can use an alternate path to
reach the destination. Note that Neighbor Discovery allows that the
sending of NUD probes be omitted for router to router links if the
routing protocol tracks bidirectional reachability.
For the purposes of Neighbor Discovery the configured tunnels
specified in this document as assumed to NOT have a link-layer
address, even though the link-layer (IPv4) does have address. This
means that a sender of Neighbor Discovery packets
- SHOULD NOT include Source Link Layer Address options or Target
Link Layer Address options on the tunnel link.
- MUST silently ignore any received SLLA or TLLA options on the
tunnel link.
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INTERNET DRAFT IPv6 Transition Mechanisms July 2002
3.9. Ingress Filtering
The specification above contains rules that apply ingress filtering
to packets before they are decapsulated. The purpose of ingress
filtering in general is specified in [13]. When IP-in-IP tunneling
(independent of IP versions) is used it is important that this not be
a tool to bypass ingress filtering for non-tunneled packets. For
instance, without specific ingress filtering checks in the
decapsulating node, it would be possible for an attacker to inject a
packet with:
- Outer IPv4 source: real IPv4 address of attacker
- Outer IPv4 destination: IPv4 address of decapsulating node
- Inner IPv6 source: Alice which is either the decapsulating node
or a node close to it.
- Inner IPv6 destination: Bob
Even if all IPv4 routers between the attacker and the decapsulating
node implement IPv4 ingress filtering, and all IPv6 routers between
the decapsulating node and Bob implement IPv6 ingress filter, the
above spoofed packets will not be filtered out.
The solution to this is to have the decapsulating node perform
ingress filtering checks as part of the decapsulation as specified in
section 4.1.
4. Configured Tunneling
In configured tunneling, the tunnel endpoint address is determined
from configuration information in the encapsulating node. For each
tunnel, the encapsulating node must store the tunnel endpoint
address. When an IPv6 packet is transmitted over a tunnel, the
tunnel endpoint address configured for that tunnel is used as the
destination address for the encapsulating IPv4 header.
The determination of which packets to tunnel is usually made by
routing information on the encapsulating node. This is usually done
via a routing table, which directs packets based on their destination
address using the prefix mask and match technique.
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INTERNET DRAFT IPv6 Transition Mechanisms July 2002
4.1. Ingress Filtering
The decapsulating node MUST verify that the tunnel source address is
acceptable before forwarding decapsulated packets to avoid
circumventing ingress filtering [13]. Note that packets which are
delivered to transport protocols on the decapsulating node SHOULD NOT
be subject to these checks. For bidirectional configured tunnels
this is done by verifying that the source address is the IPv4 address
of the other end of the tunnel. For unidirectional configured
tunnels the decapsulating node MUST be configured with a list of
source IPv4 address prefixes that are acceptable. Such a list MUST
default to not having any entries i.e. the node has to be explicitly
configured to forward decapsulated packets received over
unidirectional configured tunnels.
5. Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the members of the IPng working group and the
Next Generation Transition (ngtrans) working group for their many
contributions and extensive review of this document. Special thanks
are due to Jim Bound, Ross Callon, Bob Hinden, and John Moy for many
helpful suggestions.
6. Security Considerations
Tunneling is not known to introduce any security holes except for the
possibility to circumvent ingress filtering [13]. This is prevented
by requiring that decapsulating routers only forward packets if they
have been configured to accept encapsulated packets from the IPv4
source address in the receive packet.
7. Authors' Addresses
<draft-ietf-ngtrans-mech-v2-00.txt> [Page 20]
INTERNET DRAFT IPv6 Transition Mechanisms July 2002
Erik Nordmark
Sun Microsystems Laboratories
29, Chemin du Vieux Chene
38240 Meylan, France
phone: +33 (0)4 76 18 88 03
fax: +33 (0)4 76 18 88 88
email: erik.nordmark@sun.com
Robert E. Gilligan
Intransa, Inc.
1393 Geneva Drive
Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1121
phone: 408.548.5140
fax: 408.548.5196
email: gilligan@intransa.com, gilligan@leaf.com
8. References
[1] Croft, W., and J. Gilmore, "Bootstrap Protocol", RFC 951,
September 1985.
[2] Droms, R., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol", RFC 1541.
October 1993.
[4] Deering, S., and Hinden, R. "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6)
Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.
[5] Thomson, S., and Narten, T. "IPv6 Stateless Address
Autoconfiguration," RFC 2462, December 1998.
[6] Thomson, S., and Huitema C. "DNS Extensions to support IP
version 6", RFC 1886, December 1995.
[7] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., and Simpson, W. "Neighbor Discovery
for IP Version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 2461, December 1998.
[8] Mogul, J., and Deering, S., "Path MTU Discovery", RFC 1191,
November 1990.
[9] Finlayson, R., Mann, T., Mogul, J., and M. Theimer, "Reverse
Address Resolution Protocol", RFC 903, June 1984.
<draft-ietf-ngtrans-mech-v2-00.txt> [Page 21]
INTERNET DRAFT IPv6 Transition Mechanisms July 2002
[10] Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Communication
Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, October 1989.
[11] Kent, C., and J. Mogul, "Fragmentation Considered Harmful". In
Proc. SIGCOMM '87 Workshop on Frontiers in Computer
Communications Technology. August 1987.
[12] Callon, R. and Haskin, D., "Routing Aspects of IPv6 Transition",
RFC 2185. September 1997.
[13] Ferguson, P., and Senie, D., "Network Ingress Filtering:
Defeating Denial of Service Attacks which employ IP Source
Address Spoofing", RFC 2267, January 1998.
[14] Hinden, R., and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
Architecture", RFC 2373, July 1998.
[15] Rechter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G.J., and
Lear, E. "Address Allocation for Private Internets", RFC 1918,
February 1996.
[16] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997.
[17] D. Thaler, "IP Tunnel MIB", RFC 2667, August 1999.
[18] F. Baker, "Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers", RFC 1812,
June 1995.
[19] R. Draves, "Default Address Selection for IPv6", Work in
progress, draft-ietf-ipv6-default-addr-select-08.txt, June
2002.
9. Changes from RFC 2893
- Removed references to A6 and retained AAAA.
- Removed automatic tunneling and IPv4-compatible addresses.
- Removed default Configured Tunnel using IPv4 "Anycast Address"
- Removed Source Address Selection section since this is now
covered by another document ([19]).
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INTERNET DRAFT IPv6 Transition Mechanisms July 2002
- Removed brief mention of 6over4.
10. Changes from RFC 2893
- Should 6to4 be mentioned? How complete should we make the list
of tunneling techniques in section 1.1?
- Should all of section 2.2 (DNS stuff) be removed? It duplicates
[19].
<draft-ietf-ngtrans-mech-v2-00.txt> [Page 23]
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